


3 Ways Ted Kord Finds Booster Gold (And One Way Booster Finds Ted)

by blua and oro (vehlr)



Category: Blue Beetle (Comics), Booster Gold (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 22:52:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2446088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vehlr/pseuds/blua%20and%20oro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't matter how you separate them, whatever world they find themselves in - they'll find each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3 Ways Ted Kord Finds Booster Gold (And One Way Booster Finds Ted)

_one_

Theodore Kord lives up to his name - at least, his surname. Honest advisor, he had once been reliably informed by a drunk cultural anthropology major. Despite the hangover that had ensued, the phrase had stuck with him, for better or worse.

The truth of it was that Ted was blunt - always had been, but only recently had he realised just how much. After yet another girl had slapped him, he decides that the next person who asks him a question is going to get a whole ton of lies, just to see what would happen. Poor sap, he thinks, burying himself in another textbook.

Said sap arrives in short order. “Hey, uh… do you know where the DeGiffen Lecture Theatre is?”

He does not even glance up. “Top of the tower block. Architect says the light was better up there.” It sits badly with him, but it is to the point.

"Huh, weird. Okay, thanks." And before Ted has a chance to take it back, to correct himself and say, no, the theatre hall is actually the other side of the campus, I’m sorry… the questioner is gone, and Ted can only watch as the blonde guy exits the library with a bounce in his step.

The guilt squirms in Ted’s stomach for a while.

He finally emerges into the sunlight a few hours later.

"Hey!"

Ted whirls around to find the man from earlier - looking decidedly pissed off. He holds his hands up in defence.

"Sorry, I -"

"Man, you could have been straight with me! I was trying to avoid walking past the hall so that they wouldn’t realise I was supposed to be in the damn lecture!" He folds his arms. "Walked right into my professor, didn’t I?"

Ted tilts his head slightly. “Why are you avoiding your class?”

"Duh, I don’t want to go to them?" He shrugs. "Mom wanted me to have a classic education, and I didn’t exactly get a vote."

"You’re studying the classics? Dude, that’s the second best course here! After archaeology, of course." Ted grins as the man rolls his eyes, showing him a photo from the latest Egyptian exhibit they were putting together - his pride and joy, a whole set of scarabs. "Not my major, but definitely my passion."

"Right. Well, bug boy, you owe me a beer for tricking me into getting educated."

"Seems fair." He offers his hand. "Ted."

"Call me Booster. Everyone does. Or, at least, they will."

*

_two_

The scarab alerts him to civilian casualties, and Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle, spirals out of the sky to save lives. With effortless ease, he has adapted to the alien technology of the Reach, and Khaji-Da (although it seldom thinks this aloud) has come to consider him a great ally.

It helps that he had the sense not to scream when the scarab first came to life in his hands.

The children are screaming as he lands nearby, but someone beats him to the punch - a white costume he does not recognise, emblazoned with a star, and blonde hair that flutters in the breeze. With a soft smile, he calms the children, and Ted feels more than a little awkward bursting in on this moment.

_he cannot carry all of them to safety_

Got it, thinks Ted, stepping forward. “Need a hand?” he says aloud.

The man turns, eyebrows raised. “Hey, kids, look - the Blue Beetle’s here to help.” The children cheer, and the man offers a lazy salute at Ted’s surprise. “Some help would be great - I’m, ah… I’m good, but not that good.”

"Sure. Okay, little ladies, hop on up here." Hoisting the two girls on his shoulders, he straightens up as the man carries the two boys on his arms. "There’s a campsite three clicks south, they have medical supplies."

"Then that’s where we’re headed. Thanks, by the way."

"No problem. It’s what we do, right? Heroes."

The man beams, nodding. “Right.”

"So what’s your name?"

"Goldstar."

"Well, on behalf of the team, welcome to the good guys."

*

_three_

His secretary finds it infuriating that he insists on going out and getting his own coffee. He tries to point out that he is technically saving her the trouble and that maybe she could use the time to make that personal call she had been complaining about earlier, but she takes it rather personally all the same. Besides, he points out, he did offer to get her coffee too!

And then she shoves him out the door with an order for a large half-soy mocha with a shot of vanilla and extra cream, and he considers the argument won.

Of course, he can barely remember everything by the time he makes it to the front of the queue, and the barista looks pained as he tries to recite the order.

“Half-soy, definitely half-soy. And she wanted a shot of… caramel? No, hang on -”

“Uh, sir?”

“Sorry.”

“Is this for Jen Alton?”

“You know her?”

The barista offers him a kind smile. “Dude, she’s here every day. Half-soy mocha, coming up. Tell her Booster says hi.”

“Booster, huh? Maybe you should have gone with Brew-ster,” Ted suggests.

The barista stares at him for a long moment before laughing so hard that his manager pulls him off the counter, shooting Ted a withering stare.

Ted decides to get coffee here more often.

_*_

_one_

Booster Gold has suffered his fair share of losses.

His mother succumbing to an illness that he knew one day would be wiped out was a difficult pill to swallow. His sister dying after following him back to the past was a burden he would bear for a very long time - until Rip Hunter’s intervention. He has watched his friends fall in battle, bore witness to the tragedies of their chosen path, and been forced to keep going in their honour.

But Ted Kord still haunts him - and even though he could hop into the Time Sphere and go back to an easier time, a time when Ted laughed and smiled and lived, he knows deep in his bones that it would never really get any better until he accepted that soul-destroying truth - Ted was never coming back from this. And he had tried, god he had tried to change that. Booster had let good people die in order to save Ted, and that weighs on him in a way he would never admit to.

So Booster goes on, because he has to.

*

Skeets picks up the transmission, and he tells Rip to let the League know he has it under control. The old JLI communicators were on the fritz anyway - only last month, Bea’s had activated for no readily-apparent reason, leading to her being ambushed in the shower by Batman and Guy Gardner. And besides, he had pointed out, this was not even an identified signal - just a generic wave broadcast that never got assigned to anyone. Still, when Fire and Ice insist on meeting him there, he is somewhat thankful for the company.

The source of the transmission is eerily familiar, and it takes Booster too long to recall it - the dull grey pod with smashed-out windows is from a splinter of time that healed itself, that defied Booster’s wishes and ensured that his best friend would stay dead. The pod was how Ted died. Booster cannot think beyond this fact. _This was how Ted died when you could not save him_. Bea opens the door, peering inside. It is empty. Booster wonders if this is a godsend or not.

"Well well, almost the entire team back together again. Who’da thunk?"

As one, the girls start screaming, but Booster does not turn around. Because there was no possible way that the owner of that voice could be real. He had buried Ted twice, after all - once with his bare hands, and that had been a harrowing enough ordeal. So when a hand lands on his shoulder, there is nothing left to do but let gravity take over. Booster falls to the floor hard, shaking his head and covering his eyes.

"Michael, it’s okay! It’s okay!" Tora repeats, and Bea starts giggling almost hysterically, but it is Ted who kneels with him and pulls his hands away from his face, shattered goggles and messy hair and dirty face smiling gently.

"Hey, buddy. Miss me?"

Such a ridiculous question that does not need an answer, and all Booster can do is blurt out a strangled laugh, one hand grasping at his friend’s face.

Bea reaches for logic. “What happened to you? We thought - no, we _knew_ you were dead. Your body -“

"I don’t know, I really don’t. Last thing I remember is a little fuzzy - pretty sure I broke time by trying to stay alive. How long has it been?"

"Oh, god, years."

"Jesus, really?"

"Ted, it’s almost been five years. Longer for Michael - he went to time prison…"

"This is what you get up to when I’m not around to bail you out?" he jokes.

Words finally come, and Booster cannot stop them as they fall from his mumbling lips. “I buried you. Ted, you… you died, and then you were a zombie, and I buried you, and -“

Ted sits down, one hand rubbing Booster’s shoulder. “I’m here. It’s okay. You found me again, it’s okay.” And quite frankly, Booster has lost enough battles to take a free win once in a while, so he grabs Ted and does not let go for a very long time.


End file.
